NewJeans signed their exclusive contracts with ADOR as teenagers in 2022, and the question of who actually controlled those documents is still shaping the group’s future. Min Hee-jin’s side argues the contracts could not have been finalized without approval from HYBE‘s legal team, chief financial officer and CEO, a claim that moves the debate from who signed the deal to who held the power to set its terms.
That argument followed a New York Times report built on 26 images of the 2022 contracts, signed when the members were 14 to 17 years old, and a detailed rebuttal from HYBE and ADOR. For US fans tracking the NewJeans contract dispute, the exchange settles nothing on its own, but it maps where the legal arguments are heading.
What Min Hee-jin’s Side Is Claiming
Min Hee-jin, the former ADOR CEO who now leads OAKK Records, released an official statement arguing the 2022 contract process was controlled at the HYBE level. According to that account, HYBE’s legal team prepared the initial drafts of the NewJeans exclusive contracts, and every revision passed through the same team.
Her side adds that ADOR had no independent legal team or contract experts at the time. Under what the statement calls a shared-function structure, HYBE supplied most operational systems for its labels while creative work stayed with the subsidiaries.
Finalization required review and approval from HYBE’s legal team, CFO and CEO, plus approval from ADOR’s board, where two of three directors at the time were HYBE-affiliated, according to her side. The statement also points to a 2024 request: Min asked then-HYBE CEO Park Ji-won for authority to execute major contracts, including exclusive artist agreements, and HYBE rejected it.
“It is time for HYBE to move beyond the absurd notion that Min Hee-jin is responsible for everything and demonstrate accountability and a willingness to improve for the future of K-pop,” the statement said.
Her side also called the arrangement self-defeating: “Designing a structure in which a subsidiary’s CEO cannot approve a contract without the approval of HYBE’s CEO, then creating someone to shift the responsibility onto and issuing a statement, is tantamount to shooting itself in the foot.”
Who Actually Signs a K-Pop Contract? Four Roles, Explained
Most coverage treats a contract as a single act. In practice it involves at least four: drafting the key clauses, negotiating terms with the artist and family, signing the final version, and approving the deal before it can be executed. Both sides agree every step happened. They disagree about where the authority sat.
HYBE’s position is that its legal team provides a standard template each label can reference, and the label then negotiates key conditions such as profit-sharing methods with the artist. Min’s side responds that adjusting some settlement terms or wording is a separate matter from holding the authority to change a contract’s basic structure and major policy provisions.
That gap is the core of the NewJeans contract dispute, and the durable part of the story. The same governance question will resurface in every future filing, statement and negotiation involving the group.
What HYBE and ADOR Say Happened
ADOR’s account is specific about dates. The first draft was shared on Jan. 7, 2022, and the contract was signed in April after roughly three months of questions and answers, email exchanges, legal reviews and revision talks. The label says the members, their parents and legal representatives for some members all took part, and it asked The New York Times to state that Min Hee-jin was the contracting party, a request the paper did not accept.
On the criticism that protections for minors were missing, ADOR says all labels under HYBE sign Korea’s national standard youth supplementary agreement with their trainees. That addendum covers personal rights and the rights to sleep, education and rest, and remains in effect until the individual reaches adulthood.
The label also defends the penalty formula, saying that counting only months when revenue was generated produces the same economic effect as the standard contract, and that the Seoul High Court reviewed the provision during the contract dispute. On AI, ADOR says voices and likenesses cannot be used in AI content without each artist’s individual consent.
The Clauses That Started the Fight
The New York Times report flagged several terms as more restrictive than Korea’s standard exclusive contract form. They included the absence of provisions covering minors’ physical and mental health, education, sleep and rest, a clause requiring members to bear part of the cost of appearance-related procedures such as cosmetic surgery, a penalty formula that counted only revenue-generating months, and terms allowing commercial use of members’ names, faces and voices after a contract ends.
The report also said some members lived in a dormitory from age 12 and at times practiced until 2 a.m., that cameras were installed in practice spaces, and that four of the five members were known to have dropped out of school during their trainee years.
ADOR disputes the framing of several points. It says a request to reduce the artists’ share of appearance-related costs came from one member’s mother, that HYBE’s legal team prepared options in response, and that ADOR’s vice president at the time rejected them. On facilities, it says CCTV is installed only in shared spaces such as practice rooms and operated in line with the law, and that HYBE and its labels respect the education wishes of artists, trainees and parents. Each point remains a contested claim, not a settled finding.
Why the “Final Say” Question Matters to the Legal Battle
NewJeans declared their exclusive contract terminated in November 2024, citing ADOR’s alleged breach of contractual obligations. A court ruled in 2025 that the contract remained valid. Hanni, Haerin and Hyein have since confirmed their return to ADOR, while Minji is still discussing her future and Danielle’s contract was terminated in December 2025, with a damages lawsuit ongoing. Danielle’s side has called the move unjust retaliation.
If Min’s side can establish that HYBE held final approval authority, the accountability question shifts upward from the label to the parent company. That would not invalidate any clause on its own, and it would not prove a term was unlawful. It would, though, give the members’ side a framework for arguing that ADOR was never positioned to grant or revise the protections now under scrutiny.
The reverse case matters just as much. If HYBE and ADOR can show that ADOR’s leadership negotiated wording, weighed cost-sharing requests and executed the final version, then Min’s side faces a harder task separating its authority argument from the signature on the page.
What to Watch as the Contract Fight Continues
Approval trails, email exchanges and board minutes are the evidence that would move this from dueling statements to a documented answer. Whether any of it becomes public is the biggest open question in the NewJeans contract dispute.
- Jan. 7, 2022: the first contract draft is shared, per ADOR.
- April 2022: the exclusive contracts are signed after roughly three months of negotiation.
- 2024: Min asks then-HYBE CEO Park Ji-won for authority to execute major contracts, and HYBE rejects it, per her side.
- November 2024: NewJeans declares the contract terminated.
- 2025: a court rules the contract remains valid.
- December 2025: ADOR terminates Danielle’s contract, and a damages lawsuit follows.
- Nov. 5 and 6, 2026: The New York Times publishes its report, HYBE and ADOR issue a rebuttal, and Min’s side counters.
Two more questions will shape what comes next. Will the Danielle damages case treat the governance argument as relevant, given ADOR’s statement that her penalty was calculated with the same formula as the standard contract? And will post-contract clauses covering AI use of voices and likenesses become an industry standard, now that they sit at the center of a fight involving one of K-pop’s best-known groups?